Are you brave enough to decorate boldly in the foyer?

By Ann Hoevel, CNN

Updated 2219 GMT (0519 HKT) June 17, 2013

Staircases22 photos

Open House Week 3: Staircases – Welcome to CNN's Open House, a project that looks at how people decorate every part of their homes. We are now in the third week of the project, looking at beautifully decorated staircases. Keep clicking to see heartfelt decor and inspiring DIY feats!

Hide Caption

1 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Staircases – Emily Clark's home in Charlotte, North Carolina, has a back staircase which she decorated in a way that communicates love and pride to her children.

Hide Caption

2 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Staircases – Anisa Darnell's Roswell, Georgia, home came with a huge blank wall along the staircase. She filled it with a collage that is a tribute to her family.

Hide Caption

3 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Staircases – Jill Hinson's Portland, Oregon, house wasn't a home until she installed this gallery on the stairwell wall.

Hide Caption

4 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Staircases – Christine Price put 250 hours of hard work into the staircase of her Edwardian home in Manchester, England.

Hide Caption

5 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Staircases – Jenna Burger's Saratoga Springs, New York home had dated carpet on the stairs that she could not stand. But now that the staircase is redecorated, she often thinks about what it took to make it the way she wanted it.

Hide Caption

6 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Staircases – Jacki Poovey and her husband built their Cary, North Carolina, home with a staircase that was deliberately grand and wide, but now they love it for it's "lived-in" character.

Hide Caption

7 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Staircases – Jae Vinson's Atlanta home had a dark, dingy staircase in the back which she used every day. Some paint changed the staircase and Vinson's outlook.

Hide Caption

8 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Staircases – Victoria Barnes' Philadelphia home was built in 1890, and it needed a facelift. She painted three stories of spindles on her staircase.

Hide Caption

9 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House Week 2: Foyers – Welcome to CNN's Open House, a project that looks at how people decorate every part of their homes. During our second week of the project, we examined how people decorate their foyers: Keep clicking to see images of their bold decor.

Hide Caption

10 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Foyers – Emily Clark's bold, striped foyer -- which also functions as a music room -- in Charlotte, North Carolina, is a playful take on formal decor.

Hide Caption

11 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Foyers – Linda Weinstein of northern New Jersey loves the sophistication that the chinoiserie pieces bring to her foyer.

Hide Caption

12 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Foyers – An open floor plan and two adjacent formal rooms could have overwhelmed Erin Cook's foyer in Charlotte, North Carolina, but she choose whimsical wallpaper and a hopscotch rug for a stand-out look.

Hide Caption

13 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Foyers – Catherine Shireman of Apex, North Carolina, says she's not a fussy designer, so when decorating her two-story foyer, she emphasized the warmth of her carpet and lamps.

Hide Caption

14 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Foyers – Shannon Smith's foyer in Charlotte, North Carolina, is very small and not well-defined, so she chose a tall painting and an orchid to set her space apart from the living room.

Hide Caption

15 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Foyers – Jill Deane's "vibrant-eclectic" style continues from her front porch into the foyer of her 1920s home.

Hide Caption

16 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House Week 1: Front Porches – Welcome to CNN's Open House, a project that looks at how people decorate every part of their homes. During our first week of the project, we started right at the front door, on the front porch. Keep clicking to see some welcoming decor!

Hide Caption

17 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Front porches – In Portland, Connecticut, iReporter Jill Deane escapes her busy household (she's the mother of five) on her porch, she said. "I spend my time reading, rocking and thinking," she said, "a lot of thinking."

Hide Caption

18 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Front porches – Farm Fresh Therapy blogger and iReporter Chelsea Mohrman made deliberate use of her limited budget and love of all things vintage when decorating her front porch in Clintonville, Ohio. Most of the pieces were found in antique shops, garage sales and thrift stores, but the coffee table was made by hand out of reclaimed barn wood.

Hide Caption

19 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Front porches – iReporter Paul Tamasi says he enjoys roughly three hours each day on his rustic front porch in Belvidere, Vermont. It's part of the massive renovation he conducted on his home, turning it into a log cabin with a grand entrance.

Hide Caption

20 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Front porches – iReporter Angela Kuncaitis lives on Maple Valley Farms in Coral, Michigan, and knows how to maximize the charm of farm life. "My porch is all thrifted finds, and I never paid over $50 for anything," said the decorator, event stylist and stager. She recently hosted her daughter's prairie-themed wedding, which cost less than $5,000, she said.

Hide Caption

21 of 22

Staircases22 photos

Open House: Front porches – A cozy spot for tea is how iReporter and photographer Susan Boyle likes to think of her small front porch. Vintage style and an air of romance -- she used colors from her wedding bouquet to dress the porch this year -- greet her as she sips her morning coffee and watches her kids walk off to school, she said.

Hide Caption

22 of 22

Story highlights

The foyer welcomes guests to your home, but has many other functions

If you're going to make a bold decor choice, the foyer is the place to make it

Rugs -- in stand-out colors or sink-in levels of comfort -- really make the room

When you open the front door, there it is: The place you leave keys, stow your umbrella, check yourself in the mirror and -- play piano?

"It really is our family music room. The kids take piano lessons, so they're supposed to practice there," she said of her family's foyer.

Although her family doesn't generally go in and out of the house through the front door, Clark's children use the foyer all the time. The foyer is positioned in front of Clark's office, so she can watch her young children as they play with their dolls and run around in their walkers

And, because she sees it every day, she's really happy she chose to paint striking stripes on the wall. If you're going to have something bold in your house, the foyer's the place to do it, she said,

"To me, the stripes take everything to a different level of casualness," she said. " A piano room can get pretty stuffy, but the stripes are more playful and made everything a bit younger."

For many families, a foyer is an extension of the family room. But it's important that it doesn't look like a playroom.

Catherine Shireman said guests are always impressed when they enter her spacious foyer, which soars two stories high. Her family cares more that it's livable.

"My family lives hard in this space," she said. "There is usually a nerf sword fight occurring there."

"I want people to be awed by the grandeur of a two-story foyer but know that everyone is welcome and we're not fussy," said Shireman, interior designer and co-owner of Decor You Adore. Her decor solution was to focus on warmth. Her secret weapon? A cozy rug -- something thick and plush that your feet just melt into, she said.

Erin Cook's family plays in their foyer as well, thanks to a unique hopscotch rug, which is also the perfect afternoon nap spot for the family dog.

Cook's foyer is sandwiched between two more formal spaces, but she wasn't afraid to make it a focal point.

"The hopscotch rug gives it a more relaxed, whimsical feel," she said. "The wallpaper accents the archway, which could otherwise go unnoticed."

"The foyer makes me smile," Cook said. "I love that it has its own personality despite our very open floor plan."

Linda Weinstein, who documented the transformation of her foyer on her blog, "Calling It Home," said her foyer also makes her smile, even though the rest of her family walks straight through it without so much as a second look.

She found bold colored rugs to use in her foyer, which played off the colors in her dining room rug, and she went with blue and white Chinoiserie porcelain for a timeless and classic look.

"I love the sophistication a Chinoiserie piece can bring to a space," she said. Weinstein's grandmother also decorated with Chinoiserie, which made her home feel elegant and special.

"I want a more casual version of her home," Weinstein said.

Her go-to source for modern Chinoiserie pieces is The Pink Pagoda, which is where Weinstein got custom fabric to cover the stools under the hall table.

But what if your foyer is more like a corner than a room? Grandiosity and sophistication still work in tiny spaces, said Shannon Smith, a decorator and blogger from Charlotte, North Carolina. A large piece of art was her jumping-off point for the rest of the space.

"My foyer is really just a pass-through into the living room, so I tried to make it its own space as much as I could," she said. She created a vignette with the tall painting and smaller, inexpensive finds.

"I love all of the items (in my foyer decor) especially since I found most of them while thrift shopping," Smith said. "My lamp was a $2 Goodwill find," she said, "but I would have to say that my favorite piece in this space is my $10 rug."

Do you have a favorite find or decor project? Submit your photos to Open House and we may feature your work on CNN.com. Next week we'll feature "stairwells," so open the blinds, turn on the lamps and snap a photo of your gorgeous flight of stairs.